Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA)

‘The present lot documents Gordon Matta-Clark's 1973 work A W-Hole House in Genoa, Italy, where the artist was invited by curator Paolo Minetti of Galleriaforma to work in a simple, one-story building that had once been offices for engineers and was slated for demolition. Matta-Clark cut out a square-shaped hole from the building's roof; the angled beams of light that entered through this hole became the guidelines for the “Datum Cuts” he made to the structure's interior. Matta-Clark reflected on this project, “What fascinated me was the interior central plan. The act of cutting through from one space to another produces a certain complexity involving depth perception. Aspects of stratification probably interest me more than the unexpected views which are generated by the removals – not the surface, but the thin edge, the severed surface that reveals the autobiographical process of its making.” Sections and pieces of the building and documentation of its dissection were later exhibited at Galleriaforma.